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The
Welsh Fabian - edited for the Fabian Society by Roger Warren Evans - Tel
01792-360673 |
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Page Four I am old enough to remember the First World War. It was some years later (about 1923…) before the true impact of that War hit me – and turned me against war for ever. I saw ex-servicemen, often limbless wrecks of men who had somehow survived the hell of trench warfare, selling matches or bootlaces in the gutter to try and earn a pittance to supplement their inadequate war pension – if indeed they had a pension at all. The War Office had no further use for them. They were to be seen not only in the big cities, but throughout the town and villages of the UK. This was at a time when the British Empire covered a significant part of the world’s surface. It was a time when the British Prime Minister was a Welshman, David Lloyd George. I was actually at a public meeting when I heard him say “We will make this country a land fit for heroes to live in…” What happened? Just a few years later, the Miners came out on strike, against a proposed wage cut. Others came out in sympathy – but the General Strike soon collapsed, and the Government used troops to keep order. The unions had no resources to keep the Strike going. It was the nearest Britain had come, to having a Revolution. I was only 15 then, and I did not know until later about the appalling conditions which the miners had to work and live. Ten years later, by the mid-Thirties, I had been laid off seven times. I had received a partial Grammar School education – I had to leave school when my father died. With no worthwhile qualifications, you had little chance of a decent job. By then, I had become a socialist – more accurately an “advocate of socialism”, because one cannot truly be a socialist in a capitalist |
state. I was also a humanist, believing that, in the long term, all man-made problems could be resolved by the human intellect. My vision of a future socialist world is not confined to “political” or ”economic” matters. The vision includes using the latest technology to develop a less wasteful way of living, in harmony with the rest of the natural world. It means the use of renewable resources to replace the dirty, polluting world of fossil fuels. These fuels, having taken millions of years to become economically viable, are being squandered at an alarming rate. There are only finite amounts available. Yet the renewable sources of energy, which exist in abundance, have barely been harnessed for the benefit of mankind. When people say they cannot compete with oil or gas, that merely means that we have not yet tried hard enough. If a tiny fraction of the money spent on the development of the modern motor car, for example, had been spent on research into the potential power of these untapped natural resources, we would not have the problems which now face us. We would say to the oil-producing countries: we do not need your oil. The balance of power in world politics would and could have been quite different – there would be no need for war, possibly there would be no terrorists either. That, however, would be too optimistic. Because without a fundamental change to the capitalist system the same tiny minority of powerful businessmen would still be able to hold the rest of humanity to ransom. Which brings me back to “Representation”. If our “representatives” do not re-distribute a significant amount of the world’s wealth, the outlook is grim. So you had better get your act together, you reps, and try to sell us a fairer, cleaner, and safer, world.
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This is a pioneering Web-to-print intitiative from the Fabians of Wales >>> Page Eight |